Wanted: A National Broadband Policy

The goal must be universal, high-speed Web access, and governments—both federal and state—have crucial roles to play

by Bruce Mehlman and Larry Irving

Judging by the BusinessWeek best sellers this summer, one might conclude that our nation is in serious trouble. Fareed Zakaria describes a "post-American world," Thomas Friedman explains why we desperately "need a green revolution," and Regina Hertzlinger wonders: "Who killed health care?" Certainly, the U.S. faces unprecedented challenges maintaining its global leadership in a world that is increasingly educated, innovative, and able. Not surprisingly, American competitiveness is front and center on the campaign trail.

But while the list of maladies allegedly ailing our nation is long and well-established—addiction to foreign oil, uneven educational attainment, excessive health-care costs, insufficient personal savings, to name a few—one shortcoming gets shorter shrift than the rest: lack of bandwidth. And that's a shame, because this may be the most easily remedied.

Bandwidth refers to broadband: high-speed Internet access. Broadband access has become vital to life and commerce in America. Individuals, businesses, government agencies, health-care providers, and educational institutions all rely on broadband access for communicating and conducting business.

Access For All

The hottest debate in high tech these days is whether America is on track, or behind, in broadband deployment and adoption, and what can be done to widen broadband's reach and beneficiaries. The next President—whether Barack Obama or John McCain—has an extraordinary opportunity to ensure that all Americans have affordable access to broadband and the skills and knowledge to benefit from it. This must start with development of a national broadband strategy, a coherent road map of policies and goals that complement and accelerate efforts in the marketplace to achieve universal adoption of affordable high-speed Internet connections.

The private sector has made great progress in creating and deploying ever-faster networks. And competitive markets must continue to lead. But while we have seen solid deployment and adoption of broadband in America so far, most would acknowledge that the U.S. still has a long way to go to achieve our clear goal: universal availability and adoption of truly high-speed access.

Government has an important role here, irrespective of people's political philosophy. Conservatives correctly observe that we treat telecom like a luxury, tax it like a sin, regulate it like a utility, and subsidize uncompetitive players and anachronistic technologies. Tax policies discourage broadband adoption, regulatory policies create barriers to investment, and government actions limit competitive opportunities for new entrants and the dissemination of information in the marketplace.